Graduation Semester and Year
Summer 2025
Language
English
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy in Business Administration
Department
Information Systems and Operations Management
First Advisor
Edmund Prater
Second Advisor
Sridhar Nerur
Third Advisor
Kay-Yut Chen
Fourth Advisor
Mahmut Yasar
Abstract
Abstract
This dissertation investigates how early-stage startups in emerging markets navigate uncertainty and attract funding through narrative strategies, structural positioning, and ecosystem dynamics. Drawing on a panel of over 2,000 blockchain startups active between 2008 and 2023, the three essays examine how ventures gain visibility and legitimacy in the absence of mature institutional frameworks. Essay 1 contributes to legitimacy theory by showing that the effects of entry timing and narrative conformity on funding are shaped by subfield-level crowdedness following an inverted U-shaped pattern and by cross-ownership structures, in which shared investor ties amplify the credibility of early entrants. Essay 2 offers a descriptive account of cross-ownership-based communities, revealing persistent and thematically coherent clusters that vary by geography, funding stage, and blockchain application domain. This essay advances research on entrepreneurial ecosystems by highlighting the meso-level role of structural affiliations in shaping startup positioning and visibility. Essay 3 extends optimal distinctiveness theory by demonstrating that the funding benefits of narrative distinctiveness depend on two linguistic boundary conditions: lexical diversity and topic entropy. While distinctiveness generally enhances funding prospects, its effects are weakened when conveyed through overly complex or diffuse language. Together, the essays underscore how startups, once active in emerging markets, can improve their resource acquisition prospects by crafting interpretable narratives and embedding themselves in structurally advantageous cross-ownership networks, with implications for entrepreneurship, innovation strategy, and information systems research.
Keywords
Digital entrepreneurship, early-stage markets, blockchain startups, information asymmetry, legitimacy theory, optimal distinctiveness, narrative conformity, cross-ownership, venture capital, competitive ecosystems.
Disciplines
Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations | Management Information Systems | Management Sciences and Quantitative Methods
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Samiee, Samaneh, "Blockchain Startups Competitive Ecosystem from the New Entrants’ Point of View: A Network-Based Empirical Analysis" (2025). Information Systems & Operations Management Dissertations. 79.
https://mavmatrix.uta.edu/infosystemsopmanage_dissertations/79
Included in
Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations Commons, Management Information Systems Commons, Management Sciences and Quantitative Methods Commons